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Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Some headlines and summaries from JTA
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Russia: Hamas looking at Saudi deal
Hamas is ready to consider a Saudi diplomatic initiative that recognizes Israel’s existence, Russia’s foreign minister said.
Sergei Lavrov, who met Tuesday with Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. secretary of state, said he met with delegates of the terrorist group last weekend to impress upon them the need to recognize Israel and abide by Palestinian Authority agreements with Israel.
He said the delegation told him it was considering a Saudi proposal that would recognize Israel in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 boundaries, although it leaves the status of Palestinian refugees unclear.
Israel protested Russia’s invitation to Hamas, saying the terrorist group, which won a landslide victory in Jan. 25 P.A. legislative elections, should be shunned until it renounces terrorism and recognizes Israel.
“Somebody should start imposing upon Hamas the need to listen to the international community,” Lavrov said, standing alongside Rice, who did not comment on the matter.
NATO spy planes fly in Israel
NATO spy planes conducted an exercise in Israel, apparently as a signal to Iran.
“We’ve had NATO AWACS deployed to do some demonstrations in Israel, and we do have an active dialogue with the Israeli defense force in terms of interoperability, and particularly as it regards the security of the Mediterranean basin at sea,” Gen. James Jones, the U.S. general who is the supreme allied commander in Europe, said Tuesday in Senate testimony.
Jones was answering a question from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) about what NATO was doing regarding a potential Iranian nuclear threat to Israel.
Hamas hints at softer line
A senior Hamas member hinted his group might one day recognize Israel.
Aziz Dweik, speaker of the Palestinian Authority legislature, said in an interview published Tuesday that Hamas expects Israel to take the first step in initiating rapprochement.
“If Israel changes its attitudes toward Palestinians, if it does so much as soften its occupation practice, everything would change. Israel has to do the first step,” he told Austria’s Kurier newspaper.
Asked if Hamas would change its charter calling for the Jewish state’s destruction, Aziz was circumspect.
“For such a fundamental change there would have to be a referendum. If Israel changed the atmosphere, a positive referendum would be thinkable. But please show me borders first before you ask me to recognize them,” he said.
Aziz said Hamas would insist on Palestinian refugees winning the “right” to resettle in Israel, something ruled out by Israeli officials as demographic suicide.
Israel sells arms to China
Israel resumed arms sales to China after resolving a dispute on the matter with the United States.
Yaakov Toren, director general of Israel’s Defense Ministry, announced the resumption of sales March 1, according to Jane’s Defence Weekly. Israel had suspended the sales after signing an agreement last August allowing U.S. officials to review Israeli arms sales.
The United States had suspended its strategic dialogue with Israel because of sales of parts that the Pentagon said could compromise any U.S. action in defense of Taiwan.
The strategic dialogue resumed in December, after three years.
Church advisers oppose divestment
The Anglican Church’s financial advisers recommended against divesting from Caterpillar because it does business with Israel.
The Ethical Investment Advisory Group voted unanimously Tuesday against divestment, saying it “could find no compelling evidence that Caterpillar is or has been complicit in human rights abuses.” The vote contravenes a Feb. 6 vote by the church’s General Synod.
Israel uses Caterpillar vehicles when it razes homes in Palestinian areas as part of its counter-terrorism efforts, and the Synod said it would revisit the issue if there are new Caterpillar sales to Israel for use in razing houses.
Netanyahu would control more territory
Benjamin Netanyahu said he would move Israel’s security barrier deeper inside the West Bank.
The Likud Party leader was the third of the three candidates in Israel’s March 28 elections to address this year’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference.
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of the Kadima Party and Amir Peretz of Labor both said they would cut off a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority but would seek moderates with whom to deal, and Olmert said he was ready to unilaterally withdraw from some West Bank territory. Netanyahu suggested Israel should assume control of more territory, saying a Hamas-controlled West Bank posed dangers to Israel’s population centers and to Ben-Gurion Airport.
Shoulder-fired rockets “cannot and should not reach any aircraft,” he said to applause Tuesday.
Netanyahu also said Hamas is irredeemably opposed to Israel, and that he hoped to topple the group from power through diplomatic isolation.
Party leaders pledge support for Israel trips
Leaders of both major U.S. parties are making sure that educational trips to Israel for legislators are not affected by lobbying reforms.
Rep. Steny Hoyer, the Democratic whip in the U.S. House of Representatives, said he and his Republican counterpart, Rep. Roy Blunt (D-Mo.), both consider such trips invaluable to members of Congress.
“There has been some talk recently of eliminating these trips,” Hoyer said Tuesday in an address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual policy conference. “Roy Blunt and I are going to fight to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), a sponsor of lobbying reform legislation in the Senate, also told the AIPAC conference that educational trips overseas would be exempt from reforms.
http://www.jta.org/
posted by Somebody @ 11:15 PM Permanent Link
 
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